Spiral
by Veruka
Summary: An ancient prophecy, the birth of an Antichrist, an evil Dumbledore, Death Eaters, Aurors and Gypsies to come; two people embark on a quest to save a world that wants them dead. Snape/Sinistra. Part 4 uploaded.
1. Chapter 1

**Spiral**  
by Veruka

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and things canonically mentioned herein are property and copyright J.K. Rowling. No profit.

Rating: PG-13 (will rise with future chapters)

Full summary: A child is born, fulfilling an ancient prophecy concerning the fate of all humanity and drawing two people into a web of deadly lies and deceptions neither imagined possible. With only each other to trust, they embark on a journey to unravel the mystery surrounding the newborn, and find that in order to prevent a foretold Armageddon, they must kill an innocent damned centuries before his birth. Snape/Sinistra.

Notes: Former prologue was up for a short bit; wasn't satisfied with it, took it down, completely rewrote it, and now it is this. Inspired by Helena Darjeeling's lovely "Call to the Earth and Sea," namely her idea of Professor Sinistra as a Death Eater spy with Snape, and her stroke-of-genius breakthrough regarding the Astronomy professor's last name and the distinct possibility of her being of Romani descent. This story will delve further into that theory and how a Gypsy upbringing might affect a person's perception of magic, and of life itself. Of course, since I'm not a Roma myself, it's all artistic license and speculation. Many thanks and praise be to her for agreeing to help me with the Romani translations, and for starting up my brain plot-wise.

Diving right into things, the story begins thus...

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;   
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;   
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,   
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity._

Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come at last,   
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born? 

-- William Butler Yeats; "The Second Coming"

  
She'd been tracking the phenomenon for nearly three-quarters of a year, three-quarters of a year of studying it so closely, of being _so close_ to it, and still she didn't realise, still she was as blindsided by it as the rest of them. Months of poring over star charts, of scrutinising the heavens for hours every night until her neck ached and her eyes burned bloodshot, and still it took her by surprise when not a moment after it happened, the fore of her left arm had burned with the come-hither summoning...

Acantha Sinistra looked upon the squirming, shrieking bundle in Lord Voldemort's arms in a state of pure shock. Beneath the bone-white mask obscuring her face, her lips parted as if in a gasp, though she could not breathe, had forgotten how to. Three-quarters of a year. Nine months. Nine months, and she had never once thought to make the correlation, not even in an idle musing. And yet the words pounded in her ears, inside her skull, muffled and rattling, coiling and constricting around her mind like a python: "Behold, the Dark Heir is born!"

And then the world was mute. Vaguely, she could sense the bodies surrounding her, cheering, praising, _worshipping_ this pink, squealing...thing, and then the feel of human fingers curling into her arm -- Snape, yes, next to her, warning her. Her body was numb, she was sure of it, but somehow she managed to will it to applaud.

The images surrounding her blurred together, and she wondered briefly if this was what it felt like to drown.

_"The planets are moving into alignment -- look, here. Jupiter will be the closest its been to Earth in nearly two millennia, but look -- Mars is going to partially eclipse it."_

"Professor, what will that look like?"

"From here? ...like a star within a star, Baddock. On the seventeenth of November."

The seventeenth of November. The planets in such a flawless alignment, Mars within Jupiter, red within red, blood of war, blood of kings, the seventeenth of November, and the Dark Heir had been born.

_Why did you not see this coming?_ her mind screamed. _You were raised to see this coming! You have lived too long among these gadje; they have made you blind, and look at the price you pay! How could you be such a fool? You think you are one of them now, these gadje? This filth? You have brought shame to yourself. More than that, you have shamed your family._

A second squeeze to her arm, firmer than the first, drew her from her ruminations. She glanced over into unknowing black eyes, and could discern from them no emotion. Faint popping sounds resonated throughout the room as the masked witches and wizards Disapparated to god-knows-where -- was the ceremony over already?

"My estate," he said quietly, barely giving her enough time to nod in response before he, too, disappeared. With one last glance toward the opulent throne at the head of the room, where the servant Wormtail was hunched over the bundle, covering its small face with black cloth like a death shroud, she followed Snape with a soft crack of air hitting air where her body had stood.

+++

The Snape Estate in West Yorkshire had, over the last century or so, gradually fallen into a state of disrepair. The Snapes were a very old wizarding family, if not a very respectable one. Generations' worth of scandal had tarnished the halls of the once-grand home; wickedness had claimed many of the lives that once inhabited the house before their time, and as the sole surviving member of the family was not one for keeping up appearances that had long ago ceased to matter, the chances of the home ever blooming again were slim. The house, like the family, had withered, and accepted its inevitable death with dignity.

They Apparated into the conservatory that jutted out from the back of the house and into the unkempt garden. The room adjoining the large glass-and-iron half-dome was the laboratory, and it was there that the two professors withdrew to remove their masks.

Acantha slouched into a dusty, faded armchair nestled in the corner near the ivy-strangled windows, through which only tiny slivers of moonlight were allowed to pass. Snape regarded her for a few moments with something that could have passed for concern or annoyance before going over to a cabinet to retrieve two glasses and a bottle of brandy. It had become almost ritual by now -- they would be summoned, perform their duties, then retire to his estate to nurse a drink and sit morosely for an hour or two before they had to return to the school. "Small moments of sanity," Sinistra had taken to calling them. Snape never did figure out whether or not she was serious.

Truth be told, there was a great deal about the woman he had yet to figure out. They rarely spoke, preferring instead to simply sit in silence and organise their thoughts, a tacit acknowledgment that each was not alone in the risks being taken and the responsibilities assumed. This fact made it even more surprising when she heard his voice from across the room.

"What happened?"

"What?" she asked distractedly.

"At the assembly," he explained. "You froze when the child was presented."

Acantha shrugged. "It...caught me off-guard. You can't tell me you were not shocked by it as well."

"I admit I was not expecting it," he conceded, at her side now and handing over her glass, which she fought the urge to gulp from greedily. "But you were," he continued. "You have borne witness to far more atrocious things than an infant without so much as a flinch. What is it about this child that unnerves you so?"

"...I don't know."

"You are lying."

She took a long drink of her brandy, but found no warmth in the burning trail it blazed down her throat. "Your tongue does not serve you honourably, _gadje_."

"My tongue serves me fine, Gypsy," he snapped, quickly growing impatient with her avoidance. "Do not lie to me. I have given you no reason not to trust me."

Still, she hesitated, head bowed, gaze to the floor. Snape did not know much of Romani ways, but enough to know what to say to test her sense of pride.

"You would lower your eyes when questioned by a _gadje_? Your family would be disappointed in you."

The words had the desired effect, but only for a moment. She glared up at him, eyes flashing angrily, then flickering, deadening like a candle being blown out, and lowering once more.

"Any disappointment I bring them now is inconsequential. You do not know how wholly I have failed them."

"Which is why I ask," he persisted. "You perform them no great service by keeping information from me. I am not your enemy, Sinistra. Whatever threat this child poses, we will both have to face it, and I would prefer not to tread blindly into that battle." He paused and turned away from her, lowered his voice to a biting mutter. "I am trusting you to disallow that from happening. Quid pro quo, Acantha. We will not survive if we do not at least trust each other."

It was the first time he'd addressed her by her first name -- that she could remember, in any case -- and when he turned back around, he looked almost angry that he'd said it.

"Quid pro quo..." she echoed, and it was apparent on her face that she was giving his words serious consideration. Then, after a few moments, she exhaled a relenting sigh. "...there is an ancient prophecy among my people that tells of the birth of a _fiu de dracului_, a devil's son, when the planets stand in a false harmony, and a battle wrought with bloodshed looks upon the earth with cursed eyes. A Dark one who will give the world cause to tear into two, so that the universe might hear the screams of the hell it will become.

"In every generation, one of us is chosen to devote his or her life to the study of the skies, to watch for signs of the devil-child's coming, to accept the responsibility of stopping it before it could draw its first breath. I was different from the other girls of my tribe; I had no interest in marriage, and it was decided that if I could not dedicate my life to a man, then perhaps I could dedicate my life to the stars. The task suited me -- I enjoyed it, and I learned the skies quickly and well. It was not long before I no longer required the guidance of my instructor. I was good at what I did, but I was not satisfied with it. 'Why only one?' I asked my mother. 'If more people learned to read the skies, would they not notice if something were out of place with it? Why place such a burden on only one set of shoulders?' She told me to stifle my queries, that this was the way it had been done for centuries, and it was not my place to question it. And so, after that day, I did not -- at least, never out loud.

"Still partially unsatisfied with my profession, eventually I defied my family's wishes and set off on my own when I was nineteen. It was the most frightening thing I'd ever done -- up until then, of course. I was a young Roma witch travelling without the safety of my family in a foreign land. After awhile, I learned my way around, learned the customs of the _gadje_ witches and warlocks, the language...I felt like a child learning how to survive all over again. Soon I felt prepared enough to make a life for myself, to begin what I had originally set out to do -- to teach others how to read the sky. My beginnings were somewhat humbling -- for some time, I made a living doing astrology charts for both the magical and the Muggle. People were amazed at the accuracy of the charts, and word must have spread, because one day I received an owl from an Albus Dumbledore inviting me to teach Astronomy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Needless to say, I agreed immediately.

"I was thrilled beyond words. Here I was, at twenty-three, accomplishing on my own all that I had planned to do. But I had forgotten my true purpose. I adored teaching, but I had lost touch with my original reason for doing it, and gradually, little by little, I stopped looking for signs. I think part of me was convinced that nothing would ever happen -- not in my lifetime, at any rate -- and over time, I began to see the superstitions I had been brought up to believe as silly, and in the _gadje_ world, they were. I began to forget who I was, and what I was meant for.

"I turned my back on my people, Snape, on everything I was supposed to be, and look what has come of it. I have failed -- my family, my world. Though, looking back, I had failed them long before this..." she trailed off, swallowing whatever words she might have said in another sip of brandy.

Snape had not moved but to breathe all throughout her impromptu telling of her life's story, and now he continued to remain still, staring at her, unblinking, as he absorbed all that she had told him.

Finally, he took a drink of his brandy and walked past her to the table occupying the middle of the room, on top of which sat a dusty, aged cauldron and a few cobweb-covered crystal phials. He sat down his glass before idly running a finger around the cauldron's rim. At last, he spoke.

"Is the headmaster aware of this prophecy?"

"I don't think so. I am not sure."

"And...are you going to include it when you tell him of the child's existence?"

"Again, I am not sure...it seems rather pointless now."

"Knowledge of past events is only futile if it is ignored," he spat, splaying his hands on the table top.

"...you are angry with me," she murmured, though from her flat tone it was impossible to tell her feelings on the matter.

"No," he replied after a brief silence. "...forgive me. Ignorance does not sit well with me." He finished the last of his brandy and left the glass by the cauldron. "We should be getting back."

She nodded and rose without protest, and he kept his back to her as they Disapparated for the front gates of Hogwarts castle.

+++

"Peppermint toad," Acantha told the gargoyle standing at attention outside the entrance to Dumbledore's office the next morning. It sprang aside obligingly, allowing her to pass through to the hidden spiralling staircase on the other side of the wall.

As she waited for the step she occupied to reach the office, she mentally practiced what she would tell the headmaster of the Death Eater meeting for the thousandth time -- or more specifically, what she would tell him of the prophecy surrounding the infant the Death Eaters had so revered. After contemplating Snape's words to her the night before and giving herself one hell of a talking-to, she had nearly managed to convince herself that telling the old wizard what she knew of the child's destiny was the right thing to do -- nearly.

One thing she _had_ decided on, most definitely, was that things would have been easier had Snape been there to give her a good kick in the rear and tell her to get on with it. But Dumbledore very rarely ever spoke to the two of them together concerning their undercover activities -- he preferred to hear both versions of the goings-on separately, so that one mightn't taint the other's perception of events. Thus, Acantha's indecisiveness held strong, and only heightened when the step halted in front of the door to the headmaster's office. After taking a deep breath, she knocked on it three times, firmly.

"Come in," came the called response.

_Before anything else, trust your instincts,_ she thought to herself, then opened the door and stepped inside.

"Ah, Acantha," Dumbledore greeted her, a soft, warm smile touching his eyes as he gestured to the two leather chairs in front of his desk. "Do have a seat. Liquorice wand?"

The Astronomy professor smiled weakly in return and sat down somewhat stiffly. "No, thank you, Headmaster. Has Professor Snape been to see you yet?"

"He has not. I suppose it's needless for me to guess the purpose of your presence here, if you are enquiring about Severus's activities. What information do you bring me, Acantha?"

She began with the basics -- things any Death Eater might have said regarding the previous night's happenings.

"There is a child," she started, and Dumbledore leaned forward, his interest immediately piqued.

"A child?" he asked.

"Yes -- a newborn, presented by Lord Voldemort himself and referred to as the Dark Heir. A Caucasian baby, I believe. Black hair. It was crying -- I couldn't see its eyes."

Dumbledore's eyes shifted thoughtfully to his desk, frown lines blending together on his wrinkled forehead. "I see..." he murmured. "Your thoughts on the child?"

She looked up, in the headmaster's eyes. They twinkled strangely, and contained none of the gentle humour they usually held. He seemed tense, almost as though he was anticipating an answer he should not have known she could give him.

_Stop being so damned paranoid,_ she told herself. _It is only Dumbledore; you have been working for him for ten years now. He is a champion._

But in the light of recent realisations, and the reflection of old memories, another thought heaved its way to the fore as well: _He is gadje._ She pushed it away in a forced surge of rationality. _Do not play the fool twice in one day; you have already wasted more opportunities than you deserved to be given. Tell him._

His wand lay on his desk. He rose, and she jumped, then cursed her nervousness at his searching, bemused look as he moved to go behind her, to the phoenix-cage. Fawkes had combusted recently, she noticed. The normally brilliant red bird was barely the size of Dumbledore's hand that reached inside his cage, and his skin was a puckered, ashy grey.

Acantha inhaled a composing breath and returned her attention to the headmaster's desk, focusing on his wand as she groped for the right words. Why were they being so stubborn now, when they had tumbled from her mouth so easily last night?

"I...I know of a prophecy," she stammered, "about a child born when the planets align."

"...go on," came the shady reply. She swallowed, her throat feeling very suddenly dry.

"This child...this child will mark the extinction of humanity. Hell on Earth, the end of our world. Headmaster -- Albus -- we _must_ stop this from happening, it simply _cannot_ be allowed to---" she twisted around in her chair to face him; he stood calmly, hands now clasped behind his back as she continued, "---to _be_ at all. If this child lives, the consequences will be astronomical -- millions -- _billions_ of people are going to die---"

She had scarcely registered his arm lashing out at her when something heavy, dull and cold cracked against her left temple, sending a sharp surge of foggy pain through her skull and knocking her out of her seat and to the floor. She groaned, hands clutching at her head, too stunned to think and struggling for some form of awareness all at once, straining to find an equilibrium as the world spun and Dumbledore's words hammered senselessly in her ringing ears.

"You are correct, dear Acantha. People _are_ going to die. But never fear -- you won't." He made his way back toward his desk, carefully stepping around her, taking hold of his wand---

Little by little, comprehensive thought began to return to her, fading in and out with the steady pounding of her head; _hurt, pain, hit -- **hit** -- Dumbledore, speaking muffled words -- muffled words and reaching -- his wand, fuck -- no. No, no, no no no..._

"No," the headmaster continued, something akin to sorrow touching his voice -- not sorrow; pity. He pitied her. "You will live, Acantha Sinistra, though I'm afraid you may not remember what for."

_No..._

"_Obliviate_."

_**No!**_ Survival instinct kicked in, and she rolled out of the way in the nick of time, dodging the curse only just. Scrambling to her feet, she bolted for the door and wrenched it open just as the old wizard missed his second attempt.

"Acantha!" he roared, giving chase instantaneously.

The throbbing pain in her head became muted as her thoughts grew more rapid, her mind clearer and focused solely on escape.

_Down the stairs, down the stairs -- don't stop, don't fall, just run, run, run, go, run -- don't stop, just go, go, faster, run, down the stairs, to the halls -- to the halls, school hours, students, and he wouldn't dare, he wouldn't dare, just **run**..._

Flashes of yellow light ricocheted off the walls -- the spiral of the staircase was too narrow, and she moving down it too fast -- he couldn't get a clear shot. She had a chance, she had a chance if she could just make it---

_Yes!_ The wall in front of her slid open, and she sprinted past in and into the empty corridor -- empty. She needed a classroom, needed to find safety in numbers, and it only took her a fraction of a second to decide where the safest place would be.

With a sharp right turn, she raced down the first of three staircases that would lead her to the ground floor and, from there, into the dungeons.

+++

"Zabini," Snape hissed, rounding on the redheaded Slytherin girl nigh-predatorily, "tell me, what effect would be achieved if I were to add one part bubotubor pus to twelve parts asphodel and wormwood infusion?"

"Well...the acidity of the bubotubor pus would react with the sleep-inducing properties of the Draught of the Living Death, creating what could pass for a nigh-pure virus in a liquid form, and presenting itself like a severe stomach flu coupled with extreme exhaustion. Sir." The girl straightened up in her seat with unabashed pride, and the Potions professor awarded her with an oily smile and

"Five points to Slytherin. Very good. Now, would anyone care to elucidate the outcome of combining a common wound-cleaning potion with a dash of bat's blood? A timid Gryffindor, perhaps?" His eyes roved over the sixth-year class contemplatively. Granger was stretching her hand in the air with such enthusiasm that Snape wouldn't have been shocked if her shoulder became dislocated from its socket. "Longbottom. Do enlighten the rest of the class with a few words of wisdom."

The round-faced boy blanched and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Um...it..."

"Before I reach my centennial, Longbottom, if you please," Snape muttered, resisting the urge to grind his teeth together. A few of the Slytherin students sniggered appreciatively. The boy looked positively panicked, and had just begun to stutter out an incorrect answer when the door to the classroom burst open, banging loudly as it hit the wall.

Twenty-odd heads swivelled in the direction of Longbottom's would-be saviour, exhaling little gobsmacked gasps with wide, inquisitive eyes.

Suddenly the centre of attention in a room full of impressionable youths, a very obviously shaken Sinistra attempted to collect herself. Now that she had reached this makeshift haven, she felt dazed, unable to truly process what had just happened. She stood in the centre of the room, head still thumping with pain like a drum beat, lungs aching, muscles burning, and what felt so hot and sticky on the side of her face?

Tentatively, she reached up, lightly running her fingers along where the...what had he hit her with?

They were stained crimson when she pulled them back.

"Professor Snape...may I...may I have a word with you?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly. She bit down on her tongue, wary of making an even bigger spectacle of herself than she already had -- she could not come across as a hysterical madwoman, not now, no matter how strongly the inclination pressed her.

Snape, who had been staring at her with an alarmed frown, recovered quickly. "My office," he said, and swept over to her, led her with a forceful hand on her shoulder out of the room after informing his perplexed and apprehensive-looking class that if so much as a quill moved in his absence, it would be detention for a month.

Once across the hall, he muttered a few incantations, and the door to his office opened with a soft click. The two professors swiftly entered the room, and Snape shut and locked the door behind them.

"What happened?" he demanded immediately, pushing her down into the chair behind his desk. She was in no frame of mind to argue with him.

"Dumbledore," she explained, still somewhat winded, "I -- I went up to see Dumbledore about last night, and he -- he -- Severus, he's gone mad! He hit me and -- and then he tried to wipe my mind, and I---"

"Stop," he cut her off and knelt down in front of her, his hands braced on the armrests, his face very close to hers. "Calm yourself. Start at the beginning, and explain everything to me -- _everything_."

Sinistra nodded, forced herself to breathe deeply for a few moments before speaking again. She told him what had happened -- the words exchanged, Dumbledore's responses, her own gut reactions and feelings -- leaving nothing out, no details to chance. Much like the night before, Snape listened silently, stoically, taking in every word she said quite thoroughly until she finished her story with a half-terrified, half-resolute "We have to leave."

He rose abruptly, not responding to her last sentence, instead extracting a white handkerchief from his pocket and dropping it in her lap. "Clean yourself up," he ordered quietly, then turned away from her and ran a hand through his greasy hair contemplatively.

"Snape, please, if I am wrong you can always return---"

"Shut up, woman, I'm thinking," he snapped, and began to pace the length of the room.

His mind was reeling with the newly-surfaced information. Albus Dumbledore -- good, noble Dumbledore -- had attacked one of his employees. Or so aforesaid employee alleged -- aforesaid employee was also bleeding from a head wound and possibly concussed, possibly delusional.

Unless she wasn't.

He glanced over at her; she was dabbing at her temple with the handkerchief, glaring up at him with the frantic edginess of the prey that was unable to flee the predator, silently demanding that he make his choice and make it fast -- who would he believe; a distrustful Gypsy woman capable of being just as two-faced as he was, or the man who had taken him in so many years ago, had offered him a second chance at life, albeit for a price? A mere stargazer who had undertaken the same risks as he, or a powerful wizard who had up until now, to the best of Snape's knowledge, never abused that power? Pawn, or king?

"...come on," he snarled, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her up out of the chair. Sinistra struggled against him.

"No! Snape, I am not going back out there -- he's waiting for me, I know he is," she said, her eyes glittering with fresh panic. His jaw clenched pensively as he stared at her for a moment before releasing her arm and striding briskly back over behind his desk. He pushed the chair over and against the back wall, then stood atop it to unlock and open a narrow window Acantha had never noticed before.

"Come here, hurry," he barked after dropping back down to the floor. She hesitated.

"I...I don't think I can fit through there."

"If I can -- and I have, more times than I've cared to do so -- then you can."

"Yes, but I daresay you're lacking certain aspects of the female anatomy," she maintained, and Snape rolled his eyes with irritation.

"Do you wish to escape or don't you?"

"...you go first."

"Fine," he sneered, stepping back up onto the chair and bracing one foot against its back. She watched as he slipped head, arms and shoulders through the window, then easily pulled himself through and onto the lawn. His face appeared where his feet had just disappeared through in the window, scowling impatiently at her. "Are you coming?"

With a short sigh, she climbed up onto the chair, mimicking the stance he had taken. Snape grasped her wrists tightly, pulling as she lifted herself through, and within seconds, she had joined him on the lawn. Without another word, they started for the front gates of the castle's grounds at a run and, once there, exchanged only a glance before passing out of range of the school's safety wards and Disapparating away.

* * *

Here endeth chapter one. In chapter two, Dumbledore's motivations and actions, the students' reactions, and the wayward professors begin to tug at the lethal tapestry's loose threads. Reviews much appreciated. :)

_gadje_ - non-Roma 


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and things canonically mentioned herein are property and copyright J.K. Rowling. No profit.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

They Apparated, as they always did, into the estate's conservatory, and not a second later Snape was leading her inside, deeper into the house than she had ever been before until they reached the nigh-windowless library. The room was easily high enough to cut into the second floor, and still contained seemingly endless shelves of books, most first editions, and all coated with cobwebs and dust. Sinistra admired the sight only for a moment -- the reason they were present at the potions master's family home was far more imperative than the home itself. When they had fled the school, both had been gripped by the act-now-think-later mentality. Later had arrived, and it was time for some serious considerations.

"Your students will be wondering what's become of us," Acantha murmured, her wits finally beginning to return to her in the temporary shelter of the battered mansion.

"Yes," Snape agreed, his expression grave and darkening by the second. "If what you claim is true, Dumbledore will no doubt provide them with an explanation that will likely reap us no benefits."

"It _is_ true," she snapped. "My headache will attest to that."

He glared at her, and after a moment's hesitation, closed the short gap between them and tilted her head to the side with a finger to her chin so that he could examine the wound. He frowned at it, and without a word stalked out of the room, returning a minute later with a glass of water, a roll of bandages kept at the house for emergencies and a musty-smelling pink towel. Sinistra wondered if he had chosen that colour specifically for the joy of soiling it as he dipped the towel in the water and began to clean what blood she had missed with the handkerchief from her temple. It stung, and she bit back a hiss. Snape seemed to sense her discomfort, and attempted to work a little more gently at the gash.

"It's not deep," he muttered, sounding somewhat agitated. "Do you feel tired, nauseated?"

"Yes and yes, but I don't think either are from this," she replied, tentatively brushing her fingers against the swollen cut.

He tossed the towel on a low mahogany endtable that was seated next to a sheet-covered sofa and began to cut a small square of gauze from the roll of bandages using a severing charm.

"...Severus?" she hesitantly asked as he dressed the injury. "What are we going to do?"

He was silent for a long while, and she was about to address him again when he finally answered her, "I don't know." He didn't know, but he would. He only needed time to _think_, though time appeared to be one of the things they currently lacked. "Are you certain he attacked you because of your knowledge of the child?"

"Pretty damn certain. Although..."

"Although what?" he demanded, now finished playing nursemaid and stepping away from her tersely.

"It doesn't seem enough. There is no doubt that far more people than the Death Eaters will learn of the child eventually. He cannot possibly curse them all. So why me?"

Snape narrowed his eyes in thought, tilting his head and frowning slightly. "Then perhaps it was not your knowledge of the child's existence itself. Perhaps it was your knowledge of its purpose. You said it yourself that it was unlikely that Dumbledore knew of the prophecy concerning it -- but if he did, then chances are _you_ are the one not meant to know of it."

"But that makes no sense -- nearly every culture knows some equivocal version of it, the birth of some evil thing meant to bring about the destruction of the world. Even Muggles---"

"Perhaps it's the equivocalness of their versions that makes them irrelevant," he cut in. "They are unaware of the specifics, the dates, the true signs. Their ignorance keeps them safe -- for now -- but _you knew_. You know precisely what this child means to the world, and you shouldn't -- not in Dumbledore's eyes, at least, which makes you a threat."

"A threat to _what_, for God's sake?!" she exclaimed. "What does he want with it?"

"Any response to that question cannot be a positive one." Snape shook his head, and might have looked disbelieving if it weren't for the deep scowl on his face. "If he did indeed know of the importance of this child before you spoke with him about it, efforts would have been made to stop it before it ever came to be. Providing, of course, that he was ever truly on the side of Light."

"It is not yet too late; something can still be done. We can tell the Ministry---"

"No. They would never believe us. Dumbledore holds Cornelius Fudge in the palm of his hand, and against his word, ours is worth nothing."

There was quiet between them for a long while following that, each caught up in their own ruminations.

Dumbledore had turned Dark -- though 'turned' was something of a variable. Snape could not say with total honesty that he was surprised. Extremely disquieted, yes, but not wholly surprised. His employer -- perhaps former employer now -- was a wizard of immense power and influence, and even the noblest of men have their limits. Dumbledore had turned Dark. The only question was when. How long had the headmaster been keeping up the façade of righteousness that had gained him the trust and confidence of the wizarding world throughout Europe, and quite possibly beyond? Did he ally himself with anyone, and if so, whom?

The thought that Dumbledore could very easily be collaborating his efforts with Lord Voldemort was dreadfully plausible to the potions master, and it gave him cause to wonder how many times the Dark Lord had turned a blind eye to both he and Acantha's treachery, how many of their so-called 'great risks' were in vain. Perhaps they had not been spies at all, but messengers; not merely pawns, but deaf and blind court jesters, humiliated and laughed at behind their backs as the white and red kings cordially corresponded through them. The thought of it made Snape's blood boil. He did not take being made a fool of lightly, and a degradation on a scale such as this, he refused to allow to escape retribution. To others, vengeance was a duty -- to Severus Snape, it was an inspiration, something to be crafted carefully and utilised artfully, and already the gears were turning in his brain on how to bring his displeasure to the attention of the guilty parties.

Acantha's mind was running along similar lines, namely those concerning Dumbledore's persuasive capabilities over the wizarding world. She swallowed, her throat burning dry, and sat unsteadily down on the sheet-covered sofa as a hushed "Oh..." escaped her.

"What is it?"

"We can't return to the school, either of us. Dumbledore controls Fudge, therefore he controls the Ministry, and I sincerely doubt he pleased about two of his employees -- both of which know things he believes they should not -- escaping his grasp. Forget Obliviating -- he's not going to want us alive at all." She looked up at him, trepidation plain to read on her face. "Severus...when all is said and done, we _are_ Death Eaters. Dumbledore was the only card we had to play against prosecution. Without his support...we're branded, and that is all anyone will see. Everyone will know our names, our faces....They'll come for us, and..."

"And if Dumbledore _is_ in league with the Dark Lord, they'll be coming from both sides," he finished for her, and she nodded. There was another quiet spell, this time broken by the crack of the palm of his hand on the endtable that caused her to jump. "Damn it," he hissed, not bothering to conceal his frustration. She would see through him in a second if he tried. "Well then, I suppose we're fugitives," he sneered, voice dripping with sarcasm and false enthusiasm, "and with nothing but our wands and the clothes on our backs."

"No." Sinistra shook her head. "We have each other to trust."

"Oh, do we?"

She stood abruptly and advanced toward him, forcing him to take a step back. "Don't you _dare_ question my fidelity, Snape, not now, or so help me I will kill you myself! It was _you_ who said we would not survive unless we trusted each other, not I, and don't you even _think_ about going back on that word!"

He matched her dangerous glare and did not apologise, but did not argue with her, either, and she took it to mean the same -- there was no time for stubbornness over something so trivial as spoken words when actions told far more, and far more vociferously.

"We have to go," she muttered, turning away from him and pacing cagily back over to the sofa.

"Where?"

"Anywhere but here. It's too obvious."

"Are you suggesting we hide?"

"Oh no," she said gravely, "not in the least. No. I was frightened before, but now I'm just pissed off. I worked long and hard to build my life, and I'll be damned if I am going to let anyone -- _anyone_ -- take it away from me without a fight, especially not a couple of duplicitous, megalomaniacal old men. We are going to find this Dark Heir and, if need be, destroy it, expose Dumbledore, clear our names, and return to our lives after being welcomed back as heroes with open, bloody _grateful_ arms by our acquaintances, colleagues and students!"

"...while I admire your...fortitude," he said slowly, "I'm afraid you've stumbled across a slight problem: Potter. As much as I may dislike the boy, I..._do_ owe his father a life debt, a debt which I now must pay through the son. With Dumbledore having turned to the Dark---"

"Potter is in no danger," she interrupted. "If Dumbledore wanted the boy dead, he would have killed him long ago. I don't yet know what it is, but Potter has a part to play in all of this, and until he performs that part, Dumbledore will not harm him."

Snape looked reluctant. They did not have time for reluctant.

"Trust me, Severus," she whispered forcefully, "Potter can wait. First we save the world, and then we save the boy. Your debt will not be left unpaid."

After an apprehensive moment, he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and in that moment, their quest had begun.

+++

The soft scratching sound of quill against parchment filled the room, little taps as he dotted the I's, longer almost-rips as he crossed the T's, or scrawled out an especially curvy letter. Dumbledore had made a mistake in his approach to Sinistra, one that he would, in due time, rectify. The woman had startled him with her knowledge of the child's true purpose; his decision had been rash, but not wholly unwise. She and Snape would have had to have been cut out of the picture eventually, and perhaps it was better that that happened sooner rather than later.

There was no doubt in his mind that Acantha had gone to Severus after she had fled from him, and he had not followed her beyond the spiralling staircase leading to and from his office. If he had learned but one thing in his many years of life, it was that people were predictable. She trusted the potions master, and Snape was far more likely to believe an equal than a superior, regardless of the history between them. They would have left by now -- he was quite certain of that.

He glanced up at the sound of someone rapping at his office door, the second time he had heard the sound that day, and he responded to this one the same as the first.

"Come in."

The door opened, revealing a most concerned-looking deputy headmistress. "Albus," she greeted him, her anxiety making her tone more formal than usual. "I received your summons; what is it?"

He quickly signed the letter, and rolled it up as he spoke. "Minerva, if you would be good enough to go down to Severus' classroom and tell his students that they are to return to their common rooms until further notice?"

McGonagall frowned, a puzzled expression on her face. "And what of Severus himself?"

"He will not be there. Please, Minerva. When you return, I shall inform you and the other faculty members of the reason why." He held a cube of red sealing wax up to a candle's flame to melt it before pressing it against the parchment roll, which he then stamped with the Hogwarts seal. McGonagall's befuddlement only amplified.

"Albus, what's happened?" she persisted, to which he held up a silencing hand.

"The students, Minerva, please."

The witch looked apprehensive, but turned and left to do what was asked of her. Once she had gone, Dumbledore rose and tied the parchment roll to the leg of a tawny owl waiting patiently on the windowsill. "To Cornelius Fudge," he instructed it. The owl hooted once in acknowledgement, and took flight. That took care of the Ministry, and he had other means of contacting his more...malevolent...associate.

The two spies-cum-fugitives would quickly learn that they were no longer welcome in this dangerous game. This was too big, too important to be foiled by a mere two insubordinate, lowly school professors. This child was power, Dark power in its rawest form, and young enough to be harnessed, moulded into a shape of his would-be fathers' choosing -- namely, their own.

Some would say that Dumbledore had lived too long. They were wrong -- he had not lived long enough. The Philosopher's Stone would ensure that he would not die, yes, but it would not bring him youth, and youth was what he needed, what he craved. The Flamels had been of no help in that department, nor would they ever be; the Imperius Curse was a handy little tool. An order for the centuries-old couple to tell the world that the stone had been destroyed, and a short, believable time later, an order for their hearts to stop and their lungs to stiffen. Dumbledore had amused himself for a short while following their deaths as to whether they had been homicides, or suicides. He still wasn't entirely sure.

But this child would bring him youth, youth that he could gain without sacrificing any of his hard-won power. It had been a difficult decision, many decades ago, when he had contemplated where his ambitions would reap for him the most benefits -- in Darkness, or in Light. His defeat of Grindelwald in the 1940s had been the chisel that had finally carved that decision in stone. He had followed the Dark wizard's rise to power most carefully, studied the chinks in his defences, and in his aggressions, and had found many flaws -- too many flaws. They were always innate in evil. And so he had put those flaws to his advantage, had made a name for himself as a hero, someone to be respected, admired. He had gained power, and the strength of that Light power had endured just as he'd known it would.

Evil is a sprinter; it comes on quickly, bursting to life at top speed, but it rapidly exhausts itself, must stop and rest for some time before it is prepared to start again. Good was different -- a steadily-paced marathon runner, persevering progressively along in an eternal race. Like the Tortoise and the Hare in an eternal competition on a circular track -- but good does not always triumph over evil. There is a balance, with evil surging ahead and then falling behind as good plods alongside -- the same distances are reached, the same times accomplished, only through different methods and means.

He'd waited patiently, over thirty years, for the next Dark Lord to rise, this one just as obsessed as the last with eternal life. But this one was different -- not just a bloodthirsty tyrant, as Grindelwald had been, but a man of intelligence, a most dangerous intelligence. Dumbledore had always had a feeling about young Tom Marvolo Riddle, and apparently, that feeling had not been unsubstantiated. Tom, unlike Grindelwald, had had the fiercely cunning mind necessary to not only gain power, but keep it.

Over his numerous years, Albus Dumbledore had learned a great many things. He had travelled the world, absorbing every piece of information that had crossed his path, every rumoured prophecy, every vague reference to power and youth, and how both could be infinitely attained. In the year 1868, two years after he'd graduated from Hogwarts, he'd run across a band of wizarding Gypsies living in Romania. _Astea se plimbe cu Balaur_, they'd called themselves, the Dragonwalkers, for they travelled and lived amongst the Romanian Longhorns, followed their migration routes, studied them, even befriended them at times, if one dragon was particularly good-natured and feeling sociable. He'd come across the tribe while fulfilling his own desire to examine the magical creatures -- they often met outsiders who wished to speak with them regarding the dragons, how they interacted with the beasts and other such things. One girl in particular -- Sabina, that was her name -- had taken a fancy to him, and had managed to convince her father, the _Rom baro_ of the tribe, to allow the young foreigner to stay with them for a few days.

The girl couldn't have been more than thirteen and was a giddy little thing, but her knowledge of her people's ways was extensive, and she told him much about the Longhorns, and the customs of her tribe. More than that, she seemed to possess an uncanny knowledge of the stars -- she had been taught by her grandmother, she'd said, to read the skies, to look for signs. "What sort of signs?" he'd asked her, and that was when she'd told him about the prophecy of the _fiu de dracului_. It was not anything he had not heard before -- prophecies of Armageddon are never uncommon -- but something about this particular version struck him, stuck with him long after he'd left the tribe, much to Sabina's disappointment. He began to research everything he could get his hands on concerning the signs she had told him of, took to studying both magical and Muggle astronomy texts and reports, everything relating to the scientific exploration of outer space and its phenomenons. In time, his calculations had given him something that the Gypsies did not have in their possession, something that had all but caused him to completely forget about them entirely: In 1953, both his efforts and the world's advances in astronomy, especially the Muggle space program, had awarded him with not only a date, but a location as well.

The date, location and prophecy had been the olive branch he had extended to Voldemort early on in the Dark Lord's reign. After careful scrutiny, the Dark wizard had agreed, and the secret alliance, covered up by rumours that the Dumbledore was the only person the Dark Lord feared, had been cemented. Between the two of them, they had come up with the Denuogero Spell -- a complex and difficult spell that would transfer their minds into the Dark Heir's body once they felt he was ready, when he could wield enough power to ensure their safety after the transference and thus, their longevity. Dumbledore would have his youth again, Voldemort would have the Muggle eradication he so richly hungered for, and with their keen minds and a powerful young body, eternal youth would be an easy task to accomplish. It was the perfect plan.

It had nearly been ruined by a one-year-old boy. Lily Potter's sacrifice had all but killed Lord Voldemort in a moment of the cruellest irony, and though Dumbledore had not truly thought the Dark Lord dead, that time of celebration had afforded him very little time to search for whatever might have been left of the other wizard. It had, however, afforded him a great deal of time to think.

He knew that when the child was born, there would be no question in regards to its Dark power. Its eyes would reflect that much -- red eyes, blood eyes, found only in the blackest of hearts, the Darkest, most powerful of wizards, and even then, it was a gradual progression into such a bleak madness. This child would be born with these eyes, and the side of Light, no matter how indebted to Dumbledore they might have felt, would likely kill the infant three times over before they would consent to protect it. He had needed Voldemort and his Death Eaters to be certain that the child would be cosseted until he could perform the reincarnating spell. With the Dark Lord temporarily indisposed and with no way of knowing when that matter might turn otherwise, Dumbledore began to think of ways to realise his vision without the other wizard's aid. None of the options were very appealing, each of them promising great risk to his credibility. But then, thirteen years later, the solution presented itself in the most unlikely of places -- Harry Potter.

Potter, who had unwittingly reduced the Dark Lord to a mere shell of himself as an infant. Potter, with whom Voldemort became obsessed, nearly as much as returning to a corporeal form. Potter, who, along with his two meddlesome sidekicks, had discovered the Philosopher's Stone in their first year at Hogwarts, and had nearly destroyed Voldemort for a second time.

Dumbledore had been rather displeased about the last, though it had brought the Dark Lord's continuing existence to light. It wasn't until the supposedly dead servant Wormtail, who had been hiding under his nose for seven years, had returned to his master that the headmaster was able to make amends with his wicked ally. Bartemius Crouch, Jr.'s defiance of his father had only made things easier. Crouch's gift to the Dark Lord had been the deliverance of Potter at the TriWizard Tournament, and Dumbledore's gift had been to turn a blind eye on the young man's activities as Alastor Moody -- until, of course, the boy escaped, and the need to point a finger was greater than the need for Harry's death -- as well as a few well-placed clues regarding the morphing of the Denuogero Spell into something that could restore Lord Voldemort to his proper body. Potter's blood, meant to bring back to life the same person his mother had died to protect him from. It had been the perfect plan, and this time, it had worked. Potter had unwittingly proven himself useful more than once to Dumbledore's plans, and he had a feeling that there was still a bit of worth left in the boy's life. When that worth expended itself, then and only then would he again give the Dark Lord the freedom to do with Harry what he pleased.

He walked over to the fireplace near Fawkes' cage, lit a fire in it with a wave of his hand and tossed in a handful of glittering violet powder to summon the other professors to his office by a burst of purple flames from the fireplaces in their classrooms, the signal that he needed to see all of them at once, and that they were to dismiss their students to their respective common rooms. It had not been difficult to cook up a story to give them regarding the sudden absence of the Potions and Astronomy professors, and he would keep the lie consistent -- the other professors, the students, the Ministry and the _Daily Prophet_ would all receive the same sordid tale. The first and the third group were well aware that Severus had spied on Voldemort on Dumbledore's behalf, but they did not know that he had return to the Dark Lord's fold, nor that Acantha had joined him this time around. What he would tell them would take but a small leap of faith for the others to believe in days as wrought with doubt as these.

With a brief sigh, he reached into the pocket of his robes and withdrew his gold pocketwatch. For all intents and purposes, it could be considered broken now -- the planets had all stopped ticking into place at precisely 12:00 a.m. the night before, the precise moment the Dark Heir had been born.

He was debating whether or not to keep it for sentimental value when another knock resounded through the door -- the faculty members had arrived. Grave expression set firmly in place, the headmaster replaced the watch back in its pocket, bade them entrance, and prepared to let the turncoats' sentence be known.

+++

"I still can't believe it," Harry mumbled to himself with a shake of his head. He, Ron and Hermione sat in a shadowy corner of the Gryffindor common room, whispering conspiratorially amongst themselves after returning from the assembly in the Great Hall that Dumbledore had called that afternoon not half an hour after McGonagall had shown up in the Potions classroom when Snape had not returned and ordered them to their dormitories.

"I do," Ron muttered back, his blue eyes squinting suspiciously. "I always knew that greasy git wasn't really on our side. At least with him gone, Slytherin's definitely out of the running for the House Cup this year."

"I'm inclined to agree with Harry on this one," Hermione said, sounding almost apologetic. "It just doesn't make any sense. Snape believed in Dumbledore's cause enough to risk life and limb to spy on You-Know-Who for him. A couple tups from Sinistra is all it took for him to give up those beliefs? I don't buy it."

Ron grimaced as though he was about to be ill. "Oh, _nasty_, Hermione -- you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"All right, so it's not the most pleasant thought in the world, I'll admit, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous," she maintained. "I mean, let's review: Sinistra's a Death Eater -- that much at least has to be true, lest she could simply turn herself in and have her name cleared from the lack of the Dark Mark burned into her arm, right?" The boys nodded. "Right. So she and Dumbledore are walking up to his office, she trips on the stairs and hits her head. The sleeve of her robes gets pushed up, and he sees You-Know-Who's mark on her arm. He doesn't have his wand on him, so he can't stun her, and she gets away, runs down to tell Snape she's been found out, and they run off together."

"Yes, Hermione," Ron agreed, giving her a patronising pat on the head. "That _is_ the story. Good to know that giant brain of yours has its limits and you're slow on the uptake on _something_."

She swatted his hand away, annoyed. "No! Honestly, were you either of you listening to a word of what I just said?"

She was met with two mute stares, one puzzled, one blank, and sighed in exasperation.

"Professor Snape. Running off with Professor Sinistra. Running off with _anyone_, for that matter, because of some romantic inclination. Professor Sinistra, a Death Eater, who presumably _was_ carrying her wand at the time of Dumbledore's discovery. Death Eater. Wandless Dumbledore. And she runs away. It's completely illogical!" she exclaimed, nearing the point of hyperventilation.

Harry tilted his head thoughtfully. "The theory _does_ have some holes in it---"

"For instance, a woman actually finding Snape attractive," Ron put in.

"---but," Harry continued, "Hermione, it's _Dumbledore_. It's a far-fetched story in places, yes, but...these things _do_ happen. He wouldn't -- I mean, what reason would he have for..." he trailed off, an uneasy frown settling on his features.

"Look," Hermione sighed, "I'm only saying...these are suspicious times, Harry, and the world is filled with shades of grey. People aren't always what they seem. In our first year, we thought Snape was trying to kill you, when he was actually trying to save your life---"

"Save it for who? You heard Dumbledore -- Snape's gone back to Voldemort. We always thought he was Dark -- well, now he's proved us right. Dumbledore is _not_ evil."

"That's not what I meant---" Hermione started, but he didn't let her finish.

"Yes, it is. You want to know why these are suspicious times, Hermione? Because people like you don't know what to trust," Harry snapped, then stood abruptly and headed for his dormitory.

"Harry..."

"No," Ron sighed as he watched his best friend depart. "Let him go."

"Ron, you believe me, don't you? I mean, you don't think I...that I think Dumbledore's..."

The boy sighed again and shook his head. "I don't know what to believe. I think there's definitely more to this than meets the eye, but that's true of everything these days. You just...you need to understand where he's coming from, Hermione. Dumbledore's practically family to Harry. I'm not saying you're accusing him of anything, just...watch what you say about him -- about all of this -- especially in front of Harry."

She nodded, but looked no less worried. "You're right. It's just so hard sometimes. I get so scared for him, and it's so infuriating...I only want to examine every angle and possibility, because if I don't, and everything we know turns out to be wrong..."

"I know. He'll come around eventually. Just give him time to think things through. That's always been the one thing he never gets, when it comes right down to it."

Hermione stared at him as though he had a Flobberworm crawling out of his nose.

"What? Have I got a bogie or something?" he asked.

"When did you get so insightful?"

He gave her wry, lopsided grin and shrugged, his face reddening. "It's just logic," he mumbled. "You know."

She smiled, sniffed a haughty "Of course I know," but sobered almost immediately. "I wonder what they're doing right now. Snape and Sinistra, that is."

Ron made a face. "If the story Dumbledore fed us _is_ true, I do _not_ want to know."

"Oh, honestly, Ron," she scoffed at him, leaning back against the wall. "If they Apparate to get wherever it is they're going, the Ministry's going to be able to track them."

"Yeah..."

There was a short silence between them, until Ron leapt up from his slouch against the windowsill. "We need to think about something else for awhile," he said. "At least, I do. Come on, you can lose to me at chess again."

"How thrilling," she dryly remarked, but started for the nearest table regardless. "All right. But only one game. Then I'm going to kill you at exploding snap."

"Bring it on."

* * *

End chapter two. To come in chapter three: The journey begins. [insert melodramatic music here]

_Denuogero_ - from the Latin _denuo_, meaning 'again', and _gero_, meaning 'birth'. I think. I mean, I'm almost sure of it.  
_Rom baro_ - lit. "big man"; chief  
_Astea se plimbe cu Balaur_ - roughly translated, "those who walk with dragons"

Endnotes: Thank you's must go out to bosch, Atheis, Helena (even though she was semi-obligated to ;), and Masala the Great for reviewing. Hope you lot (as well as any others who may be reading this) enjoyed this chapter as much as the last, and I hope that Dumbledore's past wasn't too confusingly-worded. It got a bit muddled in my head for short spell, but I think it sorted itself out all right... 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I...I'm bored, so... The wonderful thing about Rowlings/A Rowling's a wonderful thing/She won't sue you if you use her people/If you say "They belong not to me." (The characters, that is.) In other words, there be no profit here, and I will never do that again, ever.

* * *

They had taken to the woods to minimise their chances of being spotted. Nearly six hours had passed since they had first fled from Snape's estate, and dusk was upon them. The last remnants of sunlight bled through the burnished gold and rust-coloured autumn leaves, and the forest around them looked as though it was smouldering, waiting to burst into flames at the first light of the moon, if only to pay tribute to the day-star.

"It's getting dark," Severus muttered, casting a glare at the setting sun. "We can stop here. If the Aurors haven't tracked us yet, they're not going to -- not tonight, at least."

Acantha turned toward the East, where the sky was already a dim indigo, and narrowed her eyes, an annoyed frown settling on her features. "Damn the trees...where are we?"

"Nottinghamshire, I believe."

"Sherwood Forest? How very fitting for two outlaws such as we," she mumbled scathingly. Snape sneered at her and shrugged off the leather rucksack he had been carrying that contained what food and drink were salvageable from his estate, along with a couple of blankets and a few toiletries, all of which had been shrunken to easily fit inside the bag, then began to clear a small area of the ground of the dead leaves that blanketed it with his hands. The more magic they used, the greater the chances became of their being found, and whatever they could do without aid of their wands, they did the Muggle way. It was a small inconvenience to suffer for the sake of safety.

Sinistra, who was now shivering with the lack of warm sun and constant movement, quickly picked up on Snape's idea and began to scan the ground for small rocks, which she picked up and arranged in a circle around the potions master's patch of earth. The deep emerald cloak he had given her to wear had been his mother's, and it whipped against her legs as a small whirlwind stirred through the forest, rousing the lingering scent of feminine perfume from the fabric. The rest of the woman's fine clothes had unfortunately fallen victim to moths.

Acantha had been wary of accepting the cloak when he had offered it to her. The possessions of the dead were considered _marimé_ to her people, contaminated, not to be kept or used by others, but she hadn't had time to argue with him. The tribulations that lay ahead of them were too pressing, and it was nearing winter -- they would never succeed in their quest if she froze to death because she had allowed a mere superstition to cloud her mind of what was truly important -- the Dark Heir, redeeming herself, her family's faith in her, saving the world...

...Severus. Yes, he was important, too. Her trust in him, and his in her, without which she was certain both of them would die. She had been brought up to believe that there was power in unity, in family. One person is nothing, can do nothing without the support of another. One person may have glory, but glory is nothing without others to recognise it, to believe it true. It was the reason why she had chosen to share the risks he took as a spy amongst the Death Eaters -- he had been alone, and had been willing to accept the fact that his efforts could very well cost him his life. She had not been willing to allow him to make that sacrifice, not single-handedly.

Acantha did not believe in accidents. When she had discovered his renewed endeavours in a careless moment before dinner one evening the previous summer when she had been on her way down to the Great Hall, her face buried in a newly-published report by Yarreweh, the Aborigine Astronomy professor employed at Ayers School of Magic in Australia, there was no doubt in her mind that she had been given that knowledge for a reason. She'd collided, quite literally, with Snape, who had been striding hurriedly in the opposite direction as she. He'd been clutching his left arm, had scarcely glared at her before continuing on his way, and it hadn't been difficult for her to put two and two together.

That night, she'd gone to Dumbledore and told him of her decision to join Severus in the tasks he had undertaken. The old wizard had argued with her on the matter for nearly an hour before calling the potions master to his office, and then it had been another hour of debate, each party unswerving in their viewpoints until she had given them both an ultimatum which they could not refuse -- either Snape agreed to begin inducting her into the Death Eater fold, or she would make his treachery known to any and all who would listen. He had not believed her, but Dumbledore had relented, and against the two of them Snape could do nothing but furiously concede to her request.

He'd been so angry with her at first, said that she was acting like a petulant child, that there were no laurels to be won and proudly displayed from this work, that she had no idea what she was getting into and he did not have time to babysit her. He was relentless, ruthless, and it wasn't until many months later that she had earned both his respect and his trust, after the Dark Mark had been seared into her arm, and she had felt the Cruciatus Curse for the first time, and had not cowered away from either.

And then one day he had finally asked her, "Why?"

"Because such a heavy weight should never be borne alone," she'd answered him. "Because pain should never go ignored, and those who taste it never forgotten. When I discovered your secret, it became mine as well. I am now just as responsible for it as you are. I was not raised to pity the anguish of others, but to share in it. Grief cannot be contained by selfishness; it belongs to everyone who learns of it. It is their obligation to feel it just as wholly as the one whom it is focused upon, and I could not allow you to be so greedy with your guilt."

He'd wanted to quarrel with her about it, she knew, but he had held his tongue, accepted her response, and ever since then there had been mostly silence between them. Until recently, of course.

He left after a short mumble to her about collecting firewood, disappearing into a dense thicket of oak trees. Acantha busied herself with the rucksack, unpacking the blankets and laying them out on the ground. They were thick and down-filled, and large enough fold thrice over one's body like a sleeping bag.

The food they'd packed was simple: A couple of round loaves of bread -- pumpernickel and rye -- a large wedge of cheese, a few sausages, oranges and apples, all of which had been kept fresh by an anti-spoiling charm for probably longer than Sinistra cared to imagine, as well as a couple of bottles of wine from the cellar. Not exactly the makings of a gourmet feast, but it was good food, hearty food that would keep them strong for plenty long enough before they would have to acquire more by undoubtedly questionable means.

She set about composing something of a meal for them as she waited for Severus to return, tearing off two pieces from the rye loaf, and breaking off a couple of chunks of the cheese. The events of the day had left her exhausted and her appetite meagre, but she knew she would wake up ravenous if she did not eat tonight, and it was better to force down a few bites now than to be sluggish tomorrow from a double-ration of breakfast.

She was struggling to open one of the wine bottles -- a blackberry merlot -- when Snape reappeared, his boots crunching on the dead leaves that covered the ground and his arms full of thick sticks. He glanced briefly at the blankets and food before kneeling down and arranging the wood in the makeshift fire-pit, then igniting it with a spark from two flints Sinistra remembered him picking up earlier that day from the forest floor.

Giving up on the wine bottle, she passed it over to him with a frustrated sigh. "Here. You do the honours."

Much to her annoyance, Snape popped the cork easily and took a swig before passing it back to her. She accepted it cantankerously and took a drink, and then another, not having realised how thirsty she was until the sweet liquid hit her tongue, warming her from the inside as the fire warmed her skin.

They ate in silence; there was not much left to be said. Their first destination had already been decided upon.

The chances that Voldemort and Dumbledore had chosen to keep the Dark Heir in Britain were slim -- they would not risk its safety by harbouring it so near the centre of so many dangerous goings-on. It would be secreted away, hidden in a place where their influence -- and the worry of that influence -- was less. Someplace that they would know well regardless, that had a history of keeping even the Darkest things unseen. Tomorrow, Acantha and Severus would begin the lengthy journey to Albania, to where the Dark Lord had concealed himself for nearly a decade, where the Dinaric Alps and Pindus Mountains met, a point of intense magic, the path to which was wrought with great peril.

It was rumoured that the mountain ranges of Eastern Europe were the birthplace of Dark magic, cold and desolate of hope with heavy black clouds hanging low, spilling forth thick, rolling fog into gnarled forests to better mask the devious depravities that were supposedly commonplace in that region. Vampire country, teeming with trolls, wolves, swarms of Doxies, and home to two of the most deadly of dragon breeds -- the Ukrainian Ironbellies and Hungarian Horntails, the territory of the latter Snape and Sinistra would need to cross to reach Albania.

For all the haste with which they had left Hogwarts and Snape's estate, now it seemed as though they had nothing ahead of them but time. They would be travelling on foot -- Apparating and Portkeys were closely monitored by the Ministry, and they could not risk leaving a trail for the Aurors and Death Eaters to follow. Flight by broomstick would heighten the chances of their being spotted, as would stealing a Muggle automobile. The Ministries of Magic of both Britain and other European countries had taken to placing their operatives disguised as Muggle guards on their respective countries' border roads soon after Voldemort's second rising to watch for precisely the sort of people Severus and Acantha were now considered -- Dark witches and wizards on the run. Even if they got rid of the car and crossed the borders away from the checkpoints, they would need to steal another every time, and though the odds of anyone making a connection between the two were scant, it was a shadow they were not willing to leave behind.

Their journey would be long -- weeks, possibly months -- but its length would give them an advantage. If they could elude confrontation, capture or worse, then the noise surrounding their 'treachery' would perhaps begin to die down, half-forgotten by the time they were in a position to accomplish what they had set out to do. If their ambitions were kept quiet, unpublicised -- and both Dumbledore and Voldemort were in no hurry to publicise the child's existence to the Light wizarding world -- then their determination could be mistaken for hopelessness, cowardice, and they would be underestimated when the time came for the pawns to checkmate both kings. It was a long shot, but they had to believe...

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him, taking a last drink of wine.

"My students," he said quietly after a moment's silence. "When June comes, if we still have not succeeded...you are aware that some of them may be joining the Death Eaters in their quest to have us killed."

Acantha looked away from him, finding the fire easier to stare into than his eyes. "Well...heavens forefend if I'm ever felled by Rufus Montague. That boy is lucky if he can locate the moon most nights."

"He is an excellent dueller."

"Ah. Yes, that _would_ be a more effective skill in a fight than knowing how a supernova affects the balance of magic in the universe," she muttered, bitterness tingeing her voice. "What do _gadje_ need to know of celestial forces? As long as they have their precious power, they could not care less where it comes from."

He arched an eyebrow at her, but she closed the subject with a short, half-disgusted sigh and began to unlace and pull off her boots. "Sleep soon, Snape," she murmured, cocooning herself in one of the blankets.

Severus didn't respond. Her back was to him, and he watched the rise and fall of her side as she drifted off, the sound of her breathing becoming slowly softer, quieter, until at last she was asleep.

The sounds of the forest echoed in his ears; chirping crickets, the rustling of the trees as the wind wove its way between their branches, the light crackle of brittle leaves as they joined the ones that had already fallen to the earth. Her words echoed in his mind.

She had used 'they', not 'you', in voicing her complaints of _gadje_ ways to him -- the first time she had ever done so. She, like himself, often chose to say things without use of the actual words, and he knew that the lack of 'you' in her grousings was not a simple slip of her tongue. He had accepted her as an equal nearly one year ago, and it was clear to him that she now viewed him as the same. Not that she had thought herself superior to him before, not in the least, but they were different, very different culturally.

"_Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa_," she had told him once. It had come across as something of a warning to him -- that she was fiercely protective of her Gypsy heritage, and he was not to question her ways and methods of doing things.

But she had used 'they', she had used 'they' and he was choosing to interpret that as a silent acknowledgement that even though she would still be firm in her ways, perhaps now she was ready to teach him why, and what they meant to her. As a Slytherin, he knew what it was to be protective of the motivations for his actions, and he had respected her privacy to be the same, though she at times drove him mad with what superstitions she still upheld but would not explain to him. But perhaps now...perhaps now she would, and Severus could not deny that his curiosity had been piqued for quite some time.

He replaced the food in the rucksack and removed his boots before laying back on his own blanket, folding it over himself once, and closing his eyes. Tired as his body was, it was nevertheless difficult for him to sleep. Images floated in and out of his mind like ether, like sand through splayed fingers, always random, always slipping just out of reach when he tried to place them. Eventually, though, slumber did claim him, light and restless with dreams he would not recall in the morning, but would leave tendrils of disquiet to slink 'round his consciousness all the same.

+++

She awoke with the sour taste of sleep in her mouth, and the sun on her face. Drowsily, Acantha opened her eyes, squinting at the brightness of the world around her.

The air was cold, and there were trees.

This was not altogether new information -- she had known of trees prior to this, and certainly cold air -- but in the haze of morning, she couldn't for the life of her call to mind as to why the former would be present in the Astronomy Tower.

A sharp crunching sound came from behind her, and she bolted upright in alarm and twisted around to face the intruder.

Snape.

And she was not in her bed at all -- rather, on the ground, and so tangled up in a blanket she wondered if it wouldn't take her years to get free.

_Of course,_ she thought to herself as coherent thought made its way lethargically back to her brain. _Nottinghamshire._

"There's a river just east of here, if you wish to wash up before breakfast," he told her.

"Which part?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, and frowned. "What do you mean, 'which part'?"

"Which part of the river is it; near the mouth or near the middle?"

"What does it matter?"

She sighed wearily and shook her head, "Never mind," and rummaged through the rucksack, extracting from it a tortoiseshell hairbrush. "How far to the East?"

"Half a kilometre at most."

She nodded and, after squirming free of the damnable blanket and tugging her boots back on, started in the same direction as the rising sun.

The splash of glacial water on her face once she had reached the river wiped all traces of sleep from her mind. She'd gone a little further upstream, to where small rapids snaked around and over a dam of rocks, where she could see that the brightness of the dawn was already being dimmed by the dreary clouds of day. It might have seemed ominous, had it not been so common, even more so as winter drew nearer. Still, the thought combined with the chill of early morning made her shiver. _You have spent far too long with your head in the skies,_ she scolded herself. _It is time you returned to the earth._

She tore the brush through her hair, forcing free the tangles and snarls that had knotted in it after the previous day's travellings. It was a hindrance, impractically long for the mission they had taken it upon themselves to carry out, and she would have cut it, had she anything to cut it with. As it was, she managed to sever a length of one of her shoelaces using a jagged rock, and twisted and tied it back in a tight braid. It would have to do for now.

She had nearly reached their campsite when a flash of heat sprung suddenly from her left forearm, and her blood ran cold. She pushed back her sleeve -- the Dark Mark emblazoned on her flesh scorched black, and she trembled with the sharp, throbbing pain of it. _It will pass,_ she told herself, _it will pass in a moment..._

But a moment came and went, and still the burn did not lessen -- it blistered. It was too hot, too hot and she could not touch it, bubbling on her skin and smelling of charred meat. Her right hand clasped tightly around her left wrist, her knees threatened to give way and just when she thought she would not be able to contain the screams welling in the back of her throat, something seized her by the shoulder, pulled her up, forced her to run, stumbling, blind to everything but the pain.

And then there was a sizzling hiss, and cold, blessed cold as her arm was submerged in the river, into the freezing water that demanded the fire to ebb from her skin. She watched, feeling slightly ill, as the water surrounding the brand boiled, and steam hissed off of the surface like snake's breath. The mark cooled slowly, fading from sickly black to ashy grey, until it was once again a stinging welt-red. She glanced over, noticing Snape for the first time, his own arm inundated in the river, gritting his teeth. Chancing a look at his eyes, she found that they were already staring back at her, glittering with an icy rage that, for a brief moment, half-frightened her.

"It's never burned like that before," she hissed softly, as though the mark had brought with it the Death Eaters and it was now dangerous to speak.

"No. He was not summoning us -- he was punishing us," he spat, stirring the water with his arm one last time before rising and jerking down his sleeve. "Come on. The Death Eaters are aware of our treachery by now, and they will be combing the country for us far more thoroughly than the Aurors. We must move quickly."

Acantha nodded once and stood, then followed him back in the direction of the campsite. He was right -- the Aurors were the lesser of two evils. They did not have a sadistic master to please, nor did they know precisely why apprehending both Severus and herself was so important. The Death Eaters would not apprehend -- they were out for blood, and if they did not paint their hands with it, pain and retribution awaited them as well. If the Aurors failed, they would be frustrated; if the Death Eaters failed, they would be tortured, and that promise gave them the dangerous edge of a rabid dog backed into a corner. They would sniff out the traitors, or they, too, would be put down.

She found he'd already packed up the blankets, and as she replaced the hairbrush in the rucksack she retrieved two oranges for breakfast, passing one to Snape as they got their bearings and started once again toward the South.

+++

"Psst!"

Draco Malfoy frowned at the sound, and paused in the dungeon corridor that would lead him to the hidden entrance of the Slytherin common room.

"Psst!"

There it was again, and more forceful than the first. He looked around confusedly -- nothing but shadows awaited his eyes.

"...hello?" he ventured, and no sooner had the word left his lips than he was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled into a dark, empty classroom with a startled shout.

"Shhh!" a female voice whispered from behind him, and Draco let out an annoyed sigh.

"Pansy, if this is your idea of spontaneity..."

"I'm not Pansy, you idiot. _Lumos_."

Light filled the room. The hands on Draco's shoulders released the hold they had on him, and he turned around, already scowling. "Granger? What the hell are _you_ doing here?" he asked, brushing at the sleeves of his robes as if to rid them of Mudblood cooties.

"I need to talk to you. It's about Professors Snape and Sinistra."

He stopped with the brushing, and Hermione knew she'd gotten his attention.

"What about them?" he demanded. "And why me? Don't you have Potty and Weasel to play detective with?"

"Harry won't believe me, and Ron...well, he's not really keen to talk about it," she muttered, quickly becoming annoyed the more she thought about that particular subject matter.

"Again, why me? What makes you think I'd intentionally be of help to _you_, of all people?"

"You're not going to help me -- you're going to help Professor Snape," she reasoned. Draco arched a sceptical eyebrow, a silent gesture for her to go on. "Oh, come on, you can't honestly tell me you actually believe the story Dumbledore told us. Professor Snape would never be stupid enough to become involved with such a careless woman -- he would consider the very notion of it an insult." She'd mentally practiced what she would say to the blond boy all throughout History of Magic, taking notes on how to best approach him and play off his juvenile prejudices instead of the military tactics of Veela mercenaries employed in the armies of Ancient Rome -- a huge sacrifice on her part that would, with any luck, pay off. She knew that if she could gain his support, however revolting it was to have to talk to him in order to get it, then the support of the rest of Slytherin House wouldn't be far behind.

"True enough," Malfoy agreed with an indifferent shrug. "What's your point?"

"I think Professor Dumbledore lied to us."

"Do you?" he asked, arrogance at her supposed ignorance seeping into his tone like water to a sponge. Hermione scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I know they're Death Eaters, Malfoy, that's not what I'm questioning."

He frowned, deflating slightly and looking somewhat petulant that she, a Gryffindor Mudblood, had figured out the Potions and Astronomy professors' secret.

"It was the only logical conclusion," she explained before he could pry further into the matter. "Look, it's not exactly classified information that the headmaster is somewhat partial to Gryffindors---" That much was true -- even Hermione could not deny it, though she was unopposed to it, especially with Snape's blatant favouritism of House Slytherin. "---but he publicly humiliated your head of house. He could have taken care of things quietly, claimed that Snape and Sinistra had both left for personal reasons and left the Aurors to hunt them in secret, but he didn't. He took the opportunity to further damage the reputation of Slytherin House."

Draco stared at her for a long while, his expression unreadable but for a hint of suspicion around his eyes.

"Granger," he finally spoke, "if you're really looking for my help, you're not going to get it by feeding me such an obvious load of dragon shit. If you need a gullible moron for your little mind games, try Crabbe or Goyle. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for Charms and I still need to get my textbook from my dormitory."

Malfoy spun on his heel and stalked out of the room before she could stop him. Hermione swore under her breath, but did not go after him, having seen full well what grovelling Draco demanded of his peers before he would deign to forgive them whatever cardinal sin they had committed against him. She would not beg, but she would have her point made, one way or another. After all, tomorrow was another day, and a Wednesday at that, which meant that the prefects would be holding their weekly meeting during dinnertime. She would _make_ them listen.

And then hope like hell that Harry didn't hate her afterwards.

* * *

_Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa_ - "_Gadje_ with _Gadje_, Rom with Rom"

Endnotes: Before anyone wonders, no, Malfoy and the other Slytherin students are thus far unaware of the existence of the Dark Heir. I'm going somewhere with that later on, trust me.

And of course, many thanks to...

**Masala the Great** -- Ah, good; I always worry about making the Trio overly melodramatic. Glad they didn't come across as such, and very glad you're enjoying this. :)  
**Light & Shade** -- Hope you liked this chapter as much as the last.  
**Atheis** -- Thrilled you like, and thank you.  
**Helena** -- One track mind? You and me both. I keep jotting down bits of smoochy-stuff all over my notes and forcing my mind to stay _here_ in the story when I write it. I'm so happy you like this, and of course, thank you yet again. :)  
**Alchemine** -- I surprised myself with how possible it seems for Dumbledore to be Dark at heart. Very glad you enjoyed it; it's my little pride point of this story. ;)  
**bosch** -- I've never read Agatha Christie, but I'm about to dart off to the library, so I'll have to look for that story. And Harry'll come around, eventually. The students are going to be playing a bigger part in this than I originally intended, I think.

Thanks again, all of you. I really appreciate all your comments. 


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I shalt not make an ass out of myself this time. The Harry Potter universe and things canonically mentioned herein are property and copyright J.K. Rowling. No profit. There. Asslessness. (It's a permanent condition -- don't laugh.) Also, if anyone's got Enigma's "Gravity of Love," it's what I've been listening to on semi-repeat while writing this. Just. If you're curious or somesuch bollocks. Give it a listen. It's good and has chanting people.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

They made it to Northamptonshire by dusk. Never before had Acantha been so grateful for the health benefits of the many staircases that led from the ground floor to the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. They had eaten little throughout the day, and if their current pace remained, they would not have to stop for food until they were safely across the Strait of Dover and in France, which was roughly two, perhaps three days' travel away, as they had decided to bypass Greater London entirely and take the roundabout route through Essex into Kent, in the interest of lessening their chances of being seen by Ministry employees.

The many staircases may have ensured her the absence of actually passing out from fatigue, but she was nevertheless exhausted, crumpling to the ground as soon as Snape finally gave the word that they could stop for the night near a small Muggle farming village by the name of Little Forkington. They were sheltered by a cluster of trees that rose like knobbly fingers against the smooth Midland Plains, but the space was still too open to gamble a fire.

Severus sat down beside where she was sprawled with somewhat less grace than usual, and she smiled inwardly at his obvious attempt -- and failure -- at disguising his own overtiredness.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, already retrieving the last of the rye bread from the rucksack and breaking it in two.

"I would say yes, had I strength enough to eat," she sighed, staring listlessly at the ripening moon that cast silvery shadows through the half-bare tree branches. He placed her half of the bread into her limp hand, and after a few moments the salivating of her mouth coerced her into wearily pulling herself up to a sitting position, leaning against a tree trunk as she ate.

"It appears your weakness was fleeting," he drawled wryly. "Tell me, did this sudden burst of power come from a collapsing star?"

Acantha shot him a withering glare. "Don't patronise me, Snape."

"My apologies for coming across as such, but I assure you the question was genuine. Sardonically solicited, perhaps, but genuine."

"Does your mouth never tire of being so full of words?" she wondered aloud. "If you were on your deathbed, you would use your dying breath to boast of your vocabulary one last time."

"And you would spend your final days avoiding nearly every question asked of you."

She smirked. "Touché."

"You came to Britain to teach, did you not? To enlighten the ignorant of the nature of the stars? Why then do you now refuse such a request?"

"Because I am tired," she snapped. "I am tired of talk, and of stars, and of endless questions. I only wish to eat, sleep, and be done with all of this."

"Don't bristle at me, woman, I am enjoying this no more than you," he bit back, popping the cork on the bottle of merlot and taking a healthy swallow. He moved to pass it to her, and she swatted his hand away. Snape rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, _do_ die of thirst, that will be most helpful to our cause," he hissed sarcastically. "Petty obstinacy doesn't become you, you realise."

Acantha scowled at him. "What care is it of yours what becomes me?"

"While I don't overly concern myself with the matter, I doubt the killing curse would go well with your complexion. Duck."

"What?"

"Duck!" he shouted, shoving her to the ground just a flash of mordant green light crackled like electricity through the air, hitting the trunk where she had been leaning against it. What pallid leaves still clung to the tree rapidly browned and scattered to the earth as the branches shrivelled and warped with instantaneous death. Snape hurriedly rose and pulled her to her feet. Sinistra chanced a glance behind her as they began to run -- Death Eaters, four of them, and they would have been invisible in the bleak night had it not been for the moonlight reflecting off of their bone-white masks. How had they found them so fast?

"_Avada Kedavra_!" came a bellow from behind them, and simultaneously they dived and rolled as another curse sailed over their heads, hitting a wheat field and leaving a circle of entropy five feet in diameter in its wake.

"The cornfield," Snape hissed as they scrambled to their feet and began to run again, staggering to dodge the spells aimed their way every couple of seconds. At last, they reached the stalks, tearing halfway through the field before he stopped, held her back as well. "We need to split up -- we can't allow them to return to Voldemort to tell him of our whereabouts. Head for the barn; I'll meet you there," he quickly instructed. Acantha nodded once, and they parted ways, each heading in the opposite direction as the other.

Severus slowed his pace after about thirty feet, crouched low, and listened. He could hear the rustle of the stalks as the Death Eaters gave chase, following the bent trail he and Acantha had left through the field. As silently as he could, he wove between the cornrows, slithering to a new position ten feet to his right like a snake in the grass. He could see little, but the soft, crunching sound of footsteps drawing ever closer kept him alert to the Death Eaters' advancement until they occupied the spot he had recently vacated and halted, uncertain of where to look next. From his vantage point so low to the ground, he could make out two pairs of black boots -- they, too, must have divided their efforts.

Worry briefly invaded his mind -- he would have no trouble with the two-against-one odds, but he was not so sure of Acantha's capabilities. He had furthered what training she had in duelling when he had been working to inaugurate her into the Dark Lord's legions, and though she had done quite well, she was still nowhere near as skilled as he in the art, and neither of them had any idea how practised these four foot soldiers were.

He shook the thought from his head -- only a _gadje_ fool would underestimate a Gypsy. Snape may have been _gadje_, but he was no fool. She could take care of herself, and if she could not...he wasn't sure how he would feel about the latter, and now was certainly not the time to work it out.

"Go on ahead," one of the Death Eaters muttered quietly to the other, "I'll stay here, in case he doubles back."

The potions master drew his wand as the other Death Eater grunted in response and started through the stalks again to Snape's left, waiting until the man's footsteps were indistinguishable from the sound of the sudden breeze that whisked through the cornrows before taking aim.

There was a distant shout of "_Crucio_!" followed by a shriek of agony, and the Death Eater spun on his heel in alarm. Snape saw his chance.

"_Expelliarmus_!" he snarled, and the Death Eater flew backward into the stalks, his wand landing with a mellifluous clatter at Severus' feet. Snape snatched it up without a thought and threw it toward the middle of the field, as far away from his enemy's reach as he could manage before taking off after its owner.

The Death Eater was already on his feet, drawing something from within the leg of his boot that glinted metallically in the moonlight. He lunged forward before the potions master could speak a curse to stun him, but Snape reacted fast, slipping between the cornrows and dodging the dagger only just. The man swung at him again, and this time, Severus was prepared; he seized hold of the Death Eater's wrist and jerked his arm around behind his back, pulling his shoulder out of its socket with a dull cracking sound. The man made a strangled sound of pain, and the blade fell from limp fingers. The potions master released the man's arm in favour of grabbing hold of his chin, and around his left temple. With a single sharp wrench and a sickening crunch, it was over, and the Death Eater's body crumbled lifelessly to the ground.

Snape bent to pick up the knife, then found himself lurching forward from a stiff strike to the back of his head. His vision flickered for a moment, the world around him fading in and out of focus. Out of instinct, he quickly turned onto his back, and almost immediately felt a heavy weight come down upon his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. Above him, the second Death Eater who had returned at his colleague's cry of pain was motionless but for a few shocked rasps that rattled in the back of his throat. Slowly regaining his breath, Snape was vaguely aware of something hot and sticky seeping through his robes. He rolled the other man off of him, and promptly learned why -- the Death Eater had unwittingly impaled himself on the dagger. Grimacing in distaste, Severus pulled the blade free from the man's gut and pocketed it with his wand before standing, still swaying slightly from the blow to his head.

The barn, he had to reach the barn -- Acantha.

The memory of someone invoking the Cruciatus Curse and of the female scream that followed it rushed back into his mind, and all traces of dizziness left him as he started in the direction that scream had come from at a run.

_Damnable woman,_ he thought to himself as the cornstalks whipped against his face. _Couldn't just allow a man to enjoy Armageddon in peace, oh no, just **had** to be the sprightly "Let's save the world!" type...going to get herself killed...might already be dead -- no. She's not dead. I've yet to bitterly blame her for all our woes, and she is **not** getting out of that responsibility so easily..._

The cornfield was void of activity, silent except for the sound of the wind shivering through the stalks, and he took the lack of commotion as a positive sign as he finally broke free of the rows and headed for the barn.

When he was not ten feet from his destination, a figure stepped out of the shadows, green cloak and purple-black robes fluttering faintly in the breeze. It rushed toward him, and Snape was somewhat shocked when it embraced him, though one of his hands came to rest on its back regardless.

"Oh, Severus, thank God," Acantha mumbled into his shoulder before pulling back. She frowned, noticing the dark stains on his hand and robes.

"It's not mine," he assured her before she even asked the question, then attended to his own concerns. "I heard a scream."

"I know. One of the Death Eaters was a woman. I used her as a shield to block the other one's curse as I stunned him."

"Are they dead?"

"Yes. I stepped on their throats while they were unconscious -- crushed their windpipes. It was...rather disgusting, but I didn't want to use an Unforgivable Curse unless I absolutely had too."

Snape nodded in agreement. "It's all the better that we don't use them. The sense of power one feels afterwards can...become addictive," he softly admitted, stepping away from her and casting a chary gaze over her shoulder at the farmhouse a field away. She glanced back and saw what had captured his attention -- a light had come on from inside the house; the Muggles living there were awake and no doubt on their way to see what all the commotion outside was about.

"Into the barn," she murmured, and he followed her without protest. The scent of livestock that assaulted them was nearly stifling as they felt their way around, their eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light from the moon. "Here," she said, taking him by the hand and leading behind a pile of haystacks. They sat back on their heels, and did not have to wait long for the voices of the farm's owners to echo through the walls of the barn -- two people, both of them men, one distinctly older-sounding than the other.

"It won't take them long to discover the bodies if they see the trails we've left in the cornfield," Snape whispered. "It is imperative that we hasten our departure."

"Always so many words," she sighed. He ignored the comment, then frowned when he felt her stiffen next to him. Her eyes shifted cagily around their pitch black environs. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" he snapped.

"Shh! ..._that_."

Severus strained to hear whatever it was she was on about. There was nothing for a few moments, and then a barely-audible but unmistakeable whinny of a horse -- the farm's stables had to be close by. He turned to her, a questioning look on his face that she could not see but perceived nevertheless.

"Snape...can you ride?"

  
  
  
"I heard shoutin', I swears I did. It weren't jus' me imagination," Jonathan Harrison of Little Forkington, aged twenty-three years, groused to his elder brother Morris as they headed out to the wheat fields of the farm that had been their father's, and his father's before him.

"Prob'ly jus' some bastard kids again, lookin' fer a good time b'neath the stars," Morris replied, smacking his torch with his hand when it sputtered for the third time in as many minutes. It gave off a last shudder of light, then died completely. "Bollocks," he swore under his breath. "Blasted thing. 'ave we got any bat'ries inna house?"

"I dunno, try the kitchen," Jon mumbled absently, scowling out at the fields as he scanned them with his own torch. Morris went to go do just that, leaving the younger Harrison to his muttered dissatisfaction. "Little bastards...need to find their own damn fields to shag in. Ain't nothin' romantic 'bout havin' a roll inna wheat anyway...'Fields of Gold', my left ass cheek...yeah, an' I live in Buckingham bloody Palace..."

A semi-loud clang jangled from behind him, and he spun around on his heel, tightening the grip on the battered cricket bat he held at his side. "...Morris?" he called out. "Morris, s'at you?"

No response. "To hell with this...'ey! Who's there?" he yelled, and this time received an answer in the form of a loud whinny from the stables, followed by galloping hoof-beats. Not a minute later, two of the horses, complete with riders who most definitely did _not_ belong on aforementioned horses' backs, came dashing out of the open barn doors and sprinted across the wheat fields towards the trees.

"OI! Those are our horses! Morris, get yer fat ass on the phone and call the police, someone's stealin' our horses! Son of a bitch, get back here! Bastards!"

His outraged cries fell upon deaf ears as the thieves continued off into the distance, one of them leaning down near the trees to pick up a parcel, scarcely slowing down to do so. Within minutes, they were out of sight, leaving behind a fuming Jonathan Harrison to curse a blue streak and throw his torch into the cornfield in disgust.

+++

They reached Epping Forest in Essex before dawn. The adrenaline rush from the fight against the Death Eaters had quickly worn away, leaving them with renewed physical exhaustion that had both fighting to keep their eyes open. The horses weren't faring much better -- they, too, had yet to sleep, and the last they had been able to stop for a drink had been some thirty kilometres back, in Hertfordshire.

Neither fought the gildings' drive toward the water as they reached a small brook. Indeed, Acantha seemed content to allow her horse to follow its own choice in paths without her input entirely, as she suddenly slumped forward in the saddle and slid boneless to the ground, dead to the world. Severus dismounted his own horse, leaning against it for many minutes as his sore legs readjusted to the feel of solid earth beneath them before he went to her.

He'd heard no bones snap, and she didn't appear to be otherwise injured. With some effort, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her over to a large hornbeam tree before allowing himself to collapse and lean back against the trunk. She didn't so much as stir as he shifted her to what he thought might be a more comfortable position, smoothing her hair away from her face and ridding it of leaves.

The air was crisp and bitter cold, foretelling of an early winter, but in his shattered state, thought was fleeting; he couldn't bring himself to bother with the blankets for the night. They had their cloaks, and she was agreeably warm against him. It felt strange, somewhat unsettlingly so, for him to hold a woman as she slept, let alone one with whom he was not romantically involved. Even then, it was a rare display of intimacy -- he had never been one for amorous affection. His life had always revolved and, he was certain, would continue to revolve around darkness, in some form or another. By now he had become so accustomed to his shrouded existence, so used to that dark that any sort of light had become unnatural, blinding, painful. Happiness is chaos to one who has found order in melancholy.

Acantha Sinistra was a shade of grey. She did not wish to draw him out of his shell, but because she had found him there, she would sooner take part in his darkness and be a companion in his misery than she would attempt to drag him into the light or attempt to show him the way out. She had no illusions of 'saving him', but she was not content to leave him to his solitude, either. It was not her place to decide when he had mourned long enough -- that decision was his and his alone, and she knew this and respected it, but would quietly stay with him until his verdict had been reached, despite the consequences and whether he wanted her to or not.

He had not, at first. She had intruded upon his life, and it had taken a great deal of time for him to accept that her presence did not plan on fading from it any time in the near future. Looking back, his concern had been for her safety just as much as it had been for his. She was stubborn, infuriatingly so at times, and in the worlds he walked in, that was a dangerous quality to possess. But she had proven more than capable of holding her tongue when silence was required, and, over time, he had come to heed her judgements just as she did his, even found himself curious of them, much to his initial horrification.

He still didn't welcome her involvement in his affairs, but he didn't protest against it, either. After all, they had become as much hers as they were his -- she had seen to that.

His ruminations gradually diminished as he closed his eyes and concentrated on the warmth of her, and the black comfort of slumber. Tonight, it did not take him long to steal into a deep, dreamless sleep, from which he would not awaken for several hours.

* * *

To come in chapter five: "Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts..." Dumbledore and Voldemort plot, Hermione voices her argument at the prefects' meeting. Things are about to get more interesting...

And of course, the reviewer-thankings...

**caius julius**: Ah, I have ensnared another. Exxxcellent. [insert Mr. Burns-esque finger-steepling] Glad you're enjoying it so far, though I wouldn't call Draco stupid -- just not buying the bullshit demeanor Hermione tried to pull off. ;)  
**bosch**: No, I meant thrice. I figured, what with the blankets' lack of zips that sleeping bags tend to have, the blankets'd have to fold over an extra time, lest they'd be coming off whenever someone rolled over. Must have people wrapped up like burritos. And sadly, no, I've never read Agatha Christie; merely seen a couple of mystery episodes on A&E. The shit library down the street didn't have the book you mentioned, so I'll trek across town to the other, less-shit library to look for it. Apologies for the lack of students in this chapter, but what I've got planned for them wouldn't fit into the time-frame -- they'll be back with a vengeance in the next part, though.  
**Helena**: Ta much. :) You'll like the next chapter, I'm sure -- it's got this thing called 'plot development' that I've recently discovered. Things get more sinister on the evil-guys front (and they do have a lot of front).

Thanks for reading, and do tell me what you thought of this chapter. If you're reading this, this means you. Yes, you. Except for the guy in the third row -- he can blow me. 


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